


I Fought the Law

by fullborn



Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: Gen, look everyone except cam gets a getting out of jail scene it's only fair, pre-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23823580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullborn/pseuds/fullborn
Summary: Donna makes an unexpected trip out to the local lock-up.
Relationships: Donna Clark/Cameron Howe
Comments: 16
Kudos: 40





	I Fought the Law

**Author's Note:**

> Chris Cantwell's (one of the showrunners) lovely short story got me thinking about them, so naturally I had to write something of my own to excise that. I really do miss these characters and the show! Here's the [link](https://twitter.com/ifyoucantwell/status/1251239805259669504) to Chris' twitter where you can donate to his brother-in-law's medical fund and download his Hacf story.
> 
> Yes, Cameron is Bos' daughter in everything but blood. That's the inspiration, along with the fact that Joe/Gordon/Donna all get a 'getting out of jail' scene in the show.

It was late when the phone rang. Donna, who was contemplating the fact that spending her days in the nerdish equivalent of a college-boy frat house was potentially warping her mind (the urge to break open a beer and channel-surf until she fell asleep on the couch had never been stronger), automatically assumed the worst. 

The worst being a constantly revised list, including but not limited to:  The server, crashed. The Mutiny house, flooded or on fire. One or all of the coder monkeys finally succumbed to sugar overdose, a tragic cautionary tale against the dangers of trying to sustain fifteen employees on nothing but energy drinks and Twizzlers.

‘Lev, slow down,’ she said. He sounded stressed but it was hard to tell if it was a real emergency: he could be just as agitated when fighting with Bodie and Arki about comic books, as if anyone cared about the legitimate backstory of Doctor Doom. _God,_ the fact she even knew that…Why bother having kids in the first place?

‘We know it’s late,’ Lev was saying, words tumbling down the line and bouncing off her tired brain. ‘But we don’t have any money and we didn’t know who else to call. And - Donna - it _was not_ our fault.’

Donna felt a dead weight settling in her stomach. ‘ _What_ wasn’t your fault? Lev?’ 

‘Uh.’

‘Hang on.’ The phone was beeping in her ear, another call on the line. ‘I’m putting you on hold.’

She cut him off mid-protest and jammed the phone under her ear. For once, she thought, couldn’t she have a night to herself? No kids protesting bedtime, no Gordon blaring Warren Zevon from the garage at unearthly hours, no disastrous man-children ringing her up to put out yet another fire, as if she had expressed a love for leaping down figurative fire-poles and wielding large hoses at disasters made entirely by other people.

A familiar robotic voice sounded from the speaker.  ‘You have a collect call from…’ An unintelligible mumble, half-cut off. ‘At Dallas County Sheriff’s Department. Will you accept the charges?’

Donna felt a headache stabbing its probing fingers into the tender spot behind her eyes.  There was no way — it was over a year since she had received a call like this, and besides, he couldn’t have, she had seen him come in from yet another late night working on the Giant Pro only an hour ago and yet — Donna left the phone on the counter and marched to the bedroom, half expecting an open window to facilitate her husband’s escape to some shitty dive bar and accompanying jail cell, but —

Gordon startled upright in the bed as she burst into the room. There he was in his pyjamas, squinting through his glasses at the same J.G. Ballard novel that had sat untouched on his bedside table for the past six months, which meant… 

‘…Hey,’ Gordon said. The furrowing of his brow indicated that she looked mildly unhinged. ‘Everything alright?’ 

Donna flustered. ‘Ah. Yes.’ Unless she wanted to accuse him of teleportation it was obvious her first instinct had been wildly incorrect, if not unfounded. ‘Just, needed my purse.’ She crossed to the dresser and picked it up with a lame flourish. 

‘Who was on the phone? Think it might’ve woken the girls.’

‘Can you check? I need to…’ She drifted out the door, back to the phone, leaving him staring after her with a sleep-fuddled frown.

By some miracle the call wasn’t disconnected. Donna pressed the one on the keypad and waited. 

‘Ohmygoddonnayoupickedup,’ came Cameron’s voice, tinny and much too fast. ‘Thank God. I’m so sorry but none of the others could afford to make bail. Can you pick me up?’ 

Donna felt the circuit in her head overload at the sound of her business partner’s voice. Cameron? In jail? She didn’t remember Gordon and Cameron deciding to swap tips on ways to self-destruct by pissing off fight-happy Reaganites… as far as she could tell. Or, who knows, perhaps the neighbours had finally reported Mutiny for siphoning their electricity every other week, as Donna had warned they would.

‘Cam?’

‘Was that not clear? It’s me.’ Cameron’s voice went uncertain, wobbling in on itself. ‘Can you come? I, uh, I need a ride. Please, Donna, I swear I know it’s late and you’ve got other things to be doing, but I didn’t know who else to —’

‘I’ll be there. Gordon can watch the kids.’ Donna wrapped the phone cord around her finger and watched as the skin there turned white. ‘Just one thing. Promise me this isn’t going to become a habit.’

Cam laughed. ‘I know I’ve got a t-shirt that says _Fuck the Police_ , but this really isn’t my scene. I promise.’

‘Okay. Hang tight.’

A pause. Donna thought maybe Cam had hung up but then her voice reappeared, serious this time.

‘Donna…Thank you.’

***

It was mortifying to discover the Sheriff’s Department clerk recognised her even after all this time. Donna waited in the lobby, hands folded over the purse in her lap. She hadn’t even bothered to change clothes before dashing from the house with a vague explanation about an emergency at work (she knew if Gordon knew the whole story he’d never let her live it down, like he had any right to judge!) so here she sat, without makeup, in her oldest flannel and faded appliquéd jeans.

A door clanged open with a _buzz_ , and there was Cameron, flanked by a broad officer sporting a trimmed-hedge flattop and looking more sheepish than Donna had ever seen her. Of course she was decked out in her most ratty _Clash_ t-shirt and battered pants, like some proto-punk with a bent for the anarchic: Donna was surprised they were letting her go at all.

They didn’t talk until the doors to the jail had swung shut behind then.  ‘I fought the law?’ Donna said, eyeing Cam’s shirt.

Cameron frowned, then cottoned on. ‘And the law won, yeah, very funny.’ She seemed relieved Donna wasn’t mad — as if eight years of being married to Gordon hadn’t exhausted Donna of any reserves of irritation she had left. 

Donna paused at the car, the question burning on her tongue. ‘What happened?’ 

Cam cringed. ‘It was dumb, I know. But we were at a bar — Yo-Yo, Bodie, Lev, Wonderboy and me — and some jackass started being a real dick. I _know_ ,’ she said, raising her hands. ‘I know you’d never act up, that it’s what he wanted, but he said some really horrible things and that was fine, but then he started picking on Lev and I guess I kind of — snapped.’

‘You snapped.’

‘I felt his nose break, I don’t know, maybe I got a tooth. I’m sure the cops took it all down if you want the gory details.’

‘You broke his nose. Because he said some mean things to Lev.’

‘I’m not good with the moral high ground. But I didn’t mean to —’

‘Then he deserved it.’

Cam’s eyes went wide, cartoon-character style. ‘What?’

‘He’s lucky he got away that easy.’

Donna yanked open the Ford and plonked herself in the driver’s seat. After a pause, Cameron followed. 

‘You’re not…disappointed?’

‘I believe you didn’t do it for kicks. We can forget about it if you want.’

They sat in silence while Donna pulled out onto the empty road, streetlights sliding over the car interior in a hypnotic rhythm. She felt Cameron glancing at her from the corner of her eye, but kept her own focus on the road. Donna liked driving at night. Liked the calm of it, liked the strange slant it gave the familiar like looking at the same scene through an entirely different lens, one with an odd orange-dark filter. 

Finally Cameron said: ‘I kept thinking about Bos, sitting there. What it must be like for him.’

It was clear the thought was weighing heavily on her mind. Donna had never really crossed paths with Gordon’s old boss, never really spared him much thought apart from as one more piece sacrificed in Joe MacMillan’s sadistic game of computer chess. 

‘He writes to me sometimes.’ Cameron knotted her fingers through one of the holes in her shirt, face angled at the window. ‘I think he must be lonely.’

Donna did not ask _Are you lonely too?_ Instead she said, ‘I suppose he’ll find it funny then, to find out that you’re a jailbird as well.’

A brief huff of laughter. The light haloed through Cameron’s flyaway hair, turning the bleached ends even more translucent. ‘Oh, he’ll never let me know the end of it. Except this isn't my first rodeo.’

‘Oh?’ Donna kept her voice empty of judgement. Polite interest, professional: _none of your business!_ her mind screamed while potential scenarios rattled around her head like pinballs in an arcade. 

‘Yup. Shocking, I know. I have a _record_.’ Cameron dragged the last word out, camping it up like Vincent Price announcing something horrifying like _nazi zombie_ s or _tax day._ ‘I did some dumb shit when I was a teenager. Figured out how to hot-wire my stepdad’s truck when I was fourteen — man, the local police department were _not_ impressed when they pulled me over. I told them I just wanted to teach myself to drive stick but apparently that’s illegal.’

Donna snorted. ‘Why does that not surprise me?’

‘Yeah. I was there for six hours waiting for someone to come pick me up. Kind of hard, seeing as my stepdad had to get a lift since I, y’know, took his truck. Who could’ve seen that coming?’

The image of a young Cam waiting alone and anxious in a jail cell flashed across Donna’s mind and twisted her heart, sudden and unexpected as an animal darting in front of the headlights. 

‘…I hope I didn’t leave you waiting too long.’

The seat squeaked as Cameron turned her whole body to level Donna an incredulous stare. ‘Are you kidding? Donna, I owe you big time. You could’ve left me there all night and I’d still be grateful you showed up at all, Jesus. I would never steal your —’ She made a face. ‘I’d never steal your car _again._ ’

A pause stretched out between them.

‘Do I want to know what that means?’ asked Donna, keeping her hands perfectly positioned on the steering wheel. Cameron collapsed back onto the seat, grimacing.

‘Probably not. It was a long time ago anyway, and I wouldn’t do it now.’

‘Right.’

‘Right.’

Donna wracked her brains trying to remember when Cameron would even have had the opportunity to take her car but the memory came up blank. And did it really matter?  ‘Hey,’ she said. Cameron jerked upright, determinedly awake and strangely endearing with her crumpled clothes and unbrushed hair, reminiscent of Joanie and Haley on mornings before school. ‘Have you eaten?’

The question creased Cameron’s forehead. ‘Not since lunchtime…maybe breakfast.’

As whenever faced with Cameron’s horrible eating habits, Donna rolled her eyes.

‘There’s a pizza place that’s open all night. Want to stop by?’

Cameron spread her hands out on her knees and flashed Donna a grin. ‘Only if I’m buying.’

‘Seems fair. And you have to get something with at least one vegetable on it.’

‘God. I’d rather rot in jail,’ Cameron said sarcastically. She flipped on the radio and immediately dialled the station from Sonny and Cher in search of something more hardcore, returning to the original channel in defeat after a few protracted seconds of static. ‘At least I’ve got new inspiration for the dungeon chapter of Parallax. You have to try and sleep while a drunk lady snores really loudly in the corner. If you try to wake her up she just gets louder. There’s no escape.’

‘Just like real life.’ Donna looked down at Cameron’s bruised fist and made a face. ‘First things first though. You’re getting an Icee for that hand.’

‘I can still type. It’s fine.’

‘That wasn’t a suggestion,’said Donna, holding a stern expression for a few moments before dissolving into late-night hysteria. 

They laughed as the night stretched out before them, their individual tiredness sliding into the rearview along with the road. Donna found herself grateful for Cam’s misadventure: for this moment without the chaos of coders and users and a mounting pile of issues — just the car and the promise of a shared meal between them. And Cam, of course. All her years in T.I., Donna never imagined working with someone like her and it felt like a revelation each time to discover she could like it. More than that. 

She loved it.

***

The birds were starting to stir in the trees outside by the time Donna stumbled into the bedroom, stomach heavy with pizza and half-giddy with tiredness. She heard Gordon stir from his side of the bed.

‘Donna?’

She put the takeout box down and started pulling off her boots. ‘There’s pizza if you want it. BBQ chicken.’

‘Donna, it’s _five in the morning._ ’

Donna shrugged. ‘Breakfast?’ She could feel the urge to laugh overtaking her as the absurdity of the night hit her in full force but she stifled the noise until the moment passed. ‘Cameron’s on the couch.’

‘What?’

‘Just so you don’t call the cops when you see her.’ Donna yawned. ‘Although that would be kind of funny…’

Gordon made a small grunt that showed he was already drifting back to sleep. She folded her jeans and slipped into her pyjama shorts, semi-aware that she should brush her teeth but too tired to do anything about it. Her side of the bed was nice and cool. She hoped the couch was just as comfortable.

‘Gordon.’

Donna put a hand on his back. He let out a huff, long-suffering, and she felt it reverberate through his ribcage. 

‘Try not to wake Cam when you get up, okay?’ She closed her eyes, thinking of sitting across Cameron in the empty diner, a fondness swelling in her chest as sleep rolled across her vision and absorbed the night into a series of oddly comforting dreams that would slip from her consciousness with the arrival of the day. ‘We’re taking the morning off.’

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when Cameron stole the Clarks' car in s1? Good times. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments appreciated.


End file.
